ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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Bryan,
Perhaps the differing responses of these "many economists" stems from the fact that while many of them may believe that in the case of market failure a regulatory intervention might prove better -- but the evidence that non-democratic government is worse than democratic gove4rnment is too overwhelming for for anyone to credibly advocate any of the leading alternatives.
And since one of the leading alternatives in the past century has been Communism, this is a viewpoint for which I suspect you'll have some sympathy. ;-)
--Robert
Casse seems to concern himself most with the differences between the views of the voters (biased) and the policy results (less biased).
Not being a student of public choice theory, I'm not sure how it handles the issues of representative democracy, where politicians may be "less biased" than the people who vote for them (regardless of what they "promise" the people).
Casse says "for decades not a single presidential nominee from either party has run for office while waving the protectionist flag." Which is true on the face of things - politicians do generally say "trade is good" - however this is usually followed by "BUT..." as in "BUT we need environmental and labor standards (whatever that means)" etc. So they can look like they at once are free traders but still pander to the protectionist popular bias.
However I think this year has been more protectionist than others. Obama said "we have to eliminate tax breaks for companies that are moving overseas" , voted against CAFTA, etc. CATO has him as:
Barrier Votes: 36% (4 votes out of 11 opposing trade barriers)
Subsidy Votes: 0% (0 votes out of 2 opposing trade subsidies)
"Interventionist"
McCain on the other hand:
Barrier Votes: 88% (35 votes out of 40 opposing trade barriers)
Subsidy Votes: 80% (8 votes out of 10 opposing trade subsidies)
"Free Trader"